‘You know why you’re here, Harry?’ he says, at last. ‘When did you last speak to him?’
‘’Fifty-one, sir. I haven’t seen him since Burgess and Maclean went over.’
‘But you knew him. You got on with his crowd.’
‘Court jester and musician. In, but not of.’
‘If I remember, you were introduced to Burgess by Goronwy Rees.’
He doesn’t have to remember because he’s read my file. ‘That’s right, sir.’
‘Spoken to Rees recently?’
He’s watching me intently, yet contrives to look completely at ease. I meet his gaze and am struck for the umpteenth time by the sun-bright blue of his eyes.
‘Not recently.’
‘Rees knew Burgess was working for the Russians but didn’t think to say so.’
‘Did I know? No. I told the investigation at the time. Same with Philby.’
He inclines his head slightly and looks down his very large nose at me. His expression … Well, he wants to believe me. That’s the trouble, the barons say. Dick wants to believe everyone. ‘Oh, come on, Harry. Not even when Burgess and Maclean slipped away?’
‘I wondered. But you interrogated him, sir. If he was guilty …’
He smiles ruefully. ‘I knew he was lying. But my predecessor here … You know how well connected Philby was, and when I took over here …’ He slaps his knees with both hands and rises. He’s the chief: he doesn’t have to make excuses. ‘It’s what we do now I want to talk about.’
I breathe deeply again. Dick must have studied my file and made up his mind before he ordered me home.
‘Coffee?’ he says, pushing the servant’s bell to the right of the chimneypiece. ‘The damage that shit has done to the Service. The men and women he’s sent to their deaths.’ Selecting a poker from the hearth tree, he stirs the embers of the fire with unnecessary vigour. ‘The Americans are hopping mad. Have you met Jim Angleton? Head honcho at CIA counter-intelligence. He was devoted to Philby. They used to get drunk together. Philby has compromised more than a score of the CIA’s most important operations.’ Dick turns back to face me with the poker at forty-five degrees. ‘The thing is, who tipped him off, Harry? We know he warned Burgess and Maclean. Well, who did the same for Philby?’
There’s a polite knock and a young fellow enters with a tray.
‘Thank you, Brown,’ says Dick. ‘Milk, Harry?’
Brown has brought us three bone china cups.
‘Why do you think Philby was tipped off, sir? I understand you sent Elliott to confront him.’
‘Sugar? I’ve read a transcript of their conversation, Harry. He wasn’t surprised to see Elliott. He knew we were on to him.’
‘Then he would have escaped before the meeting.’
Dick hands me a cup then steps over to his desk – ‘I’d like someone to join us’ – and picks up a phone. ‘Ask Arthur to come up, would you?’ I watch him put the receiver back and pour more coffee. He knows the ‘someone’ well enough to slide two spoons of sugar into his cup.
‘You see, Harry, this goes deep – deeper than we thought possible. First Burgess and Maclean, now Philby, and it isn’t the end of it, because there are five of them.’
‘Five?’
‘A Ring of Five.’ He sits back in the armchair opposite with a sigh. ‘On my watch.’
I can see in a quiet ‘Dick way’ he’s in a bit of a funk. Perhaps he’s imagining the visit he will have to make to Number 10. The prime minister hasn’t even come clean to the country about the third man yet. If there’s a fourth and a fifth … Well, Dick was supposed to keep that sort of stink from Downing Street.
‘Do you have any idea who, sir?’ I say. ‘And what’s it got to do with me?’
4
‘DO YOU KNOW Arthur?’ says Dick.
Arthur Martin. The head of Soviet Counter-espionage at MI5. Spycatcher in chief. The scalps Martin has taken and tried to take are the stuff of Service legend.
‘I haven’t had the pleasure.’
‘Actually, you have,’ says Martin, offering me his hand. ‘We met at a party in ’fifty-one. Perhaps you remember my wife, Joan. Joan Russell King.’
I apologise and ask after her, and while he speaks of their life together in Surrey, I beat back the memory of a drunken pass I made when she was still Dick White’s secretary at Five.
Martin is about my age. He’s scrubbed and polished in a sergeant-major sort of way. It’s easy to imagine he’s fastidious about everything. Dick speaks and he leans forward to listen, with a smile that’s tight enough to play, as if he’s having to concentrate unnaturally hard on being amiable. I think, Ex-copper, and when he speaks, I hear grammar-school boy from the shires. He’s a Roundhead. Six has always belonged to Cavaliers. A few of us are tolerated on both sides of the House.
‘Arthur knows more about this business than anyone,’ says Dick. ‘Tell Harry why you think we still have a cuckoo in the nest.’
‘I’ve been going through the files,’ Martin says, a thick one open across his knees. ‘The leads are there. Remember Gouzenko? Defected September 1945. He walked out of the Soviet Embassy in Canada with its secrets stuffed down his trousers. We rounded up dozens of their agents. But there was one – codename ELLI – we couldn’t identify. There was a chance … A few days before Gouzenko came across, our people in Istanbul were approached by a KGB agent: Konstantin Dmitrievich Volkov. He’d worked at Moscow Centre and he was ready to sell us its secrets, only he was betrayed before he had a chance to.’
‘That shit Philby,’ says Dick. ‘He tipped off his KGB controller here and Moscow’s hitmen managed the rest.’
‘But we did learn something,’ says Martin. ‘Volkov told us the KGB was running agents in our Foreign Office and the intelligence services, and that one of them was the head of a counter-espionage section. With this … well …’ He glances down at his file, and something in his manner … I sense there’s a piece of intelligence he isn’t ready to share with me.
Dick clears his throat, then says, ‘We did have some success. The Americans identified Donald Maclean as the agent in the Foreign Office. Of course, Philby was our man in Washington at the time, and he arranged for Moscow to exfiltrate him from London – Burgess too. We were pretty sure it was Philby who tipped them off.’
‘Not old Kim,’ says Martin, bitterly. ‘Good old Kim. His friends at Six wouldn’t believe us. He went to Westminster School and Cambridge University, you know. I pushed for a full investigation – open all the files …’
Dick is twitching.
‘… and now Philby’s gone and the damage is done!’
There’s an embarrassed silence. ‘Yes.’ Dick clears his throat again. ‘Thank you, Arthur,’ and to me, ‘Arthur has been struggling with this for a long time. Would you like some more coffee?’
But Martin is ready to turn another page. December 1961, defector number three. KGB officer Anatoli Golitsyn rolled up at the American Embassy in Helsinki with his wife and child and offered his secrets in return for asylum. Golitsyn claimed the KGB’s most valuable assets in Britain belonged to a Ring of Five spies who were at university together in the 1930s. ‘The first two were Burgess and Maclean, and we were pretty sure the third was Philby. Then one of his women came forward: Flora Solomon.’
Dick slaps the arm of his chair. ‘Know what she said? “Oh, Sir Richard, I do wish I’d come to you earlier.” She was twenty-five years late.’
Kim had asked Solomon to join him in his ‘work for peace’ in the thirties. Maybe they were lovers, maybe she was a little in love with the memory of that time, but she had kept his secret for twenty-five years. The cat out of the bag at last, Five and Six agreed that Arthur Martin should confront Philby with the evidence. But a switch was made at the last minute and it was Elliott who flew out to Beirut. Philby confessed to his old chum and promised to co-operate in return for immunity. The following day he ran to Moscow.
‘He was ready. He was expecting us. You he
ar it on the interrogation tape,’ says Martin. ‘The very first thing he says to Elliott is “I thought it would be you.” How did he know? How?’
His gaze slides sideways to Dick, and I sense he’s reluctant to tell me more. But Dick has made up his mind. ‘Arthur thinks we still have a cuckoo in the nest. Arthur?’
‘Yes. Yes, I do. Kim was tipped off by someone. Only five of us saw the new evidence. Only five of us knew the plan to confront him.’
‘Go on.’
‘Well, it’s one of two people. In my view only two of us fit the profile of an enemy penetration agent.’ He leans forward a little to place his cup on a table. ‘Yes. It’s either the director general of the Security Service or his deputy.’
‘The director general?’ I want to laugh. ‘You think Sir Roger is working for Moscow?’
‘That’s right,’ says Martin.
Dick looks embarrassed, as well he might – ‘Not the DG.’ Roger Hollis was his deputy at MI5 and anointed successor. ‘No. We’re not investigating the DG,’ he says again. ‘There’s no question of that – but his deputy, Mitchell, Graham Mitchell … Arthur’s been through the files. He’s spoken to the Americans …’ The thought of the Americans drives Dick from his fireside. ‘The Americans are furious. Too many leaks, they say. They don’t trust us. The British can’t be trusted – that’s what they say, Arthur?’
‘That’s right, sir.’
‘No, Harry, it sickens me, but we can’t ignore the evidence. There may be a penetration agent – what do the KGB call them?’
‘A mole.’
‘A mole – at the very top of the service.’
I nod thoughtfully. ‘Mitchell? It’s been a while, but he doesn’t strike me …’ The Graham Mitchell I knew during the war would have had neither the imagination nor the courage to be a traitor. ‘Why?’
‘Opportunity,’ says Martin. He’s the deputy director general. He’s been with Five since 1939. He had Communist sympathies at university.’
I pull a face.
‘It’s a piece of evidence,’ he says belligerently.
‘Or is it hearsay?’
‘And his record – the leads that Five ignored while Mitchell was head of Counter-espionage … Look, I’ve been through what we have on paper – there’s a good case. We can’t sweep this under the carpet, not this time, not after Philby. If it isn’t the DG, it’s his deputy. Believe me, we’ll find the bloody evidence – only, for God’s sake, let’s get on with it!’
Martin is glowing indignation. I think of Joan, his wife, who used to be fun. ‘It’s instinctive with Arthur,’ Dick says to me, by way of apology. ‘There’s no one better at ferreting the truth from the files.’
‘But this time we need phone taps, surveillance – the works,’ he says.
‘So,’ I say to Dick, ‘you’re going to investigate the deputy director general of MI5? Does the DG know?’
Dick sits slowly back in his chair with the air of someone who has just run a marathon. ‘He’s given the go-ahead.’
‘Sir Roger’s agreed to investigate his own deputy?’
‘Didn’t I just say so? No more nasty surprises. We need to be sure he’s clean. That’s what Roger’s going to tell the prime minister and the Americans. He recognises what’s at stake here. If there’s a mole at the top, well, how many enemy agents is he protecting?’
‘Dick wants me to be part of the investigation,’ I explain to Elsa later. ‘He doesn’t want this blowing up in his face.’
It’s after nine o’clock at night and we’ve drunk a bottle of wine and made love on her living-room floor.
‘Do you know Mitchell?’ she says.
‘Not as well as you do. My job is to keep an eye on Martin.’
‘You said Martin was Dick’s man.’
I lean forward to kiss the gap between her breasts and mutter, ‘But he’s combustible.’
‘Sounds as if Martin’s the one in charge,’ she says, pulling me back by my hair.
Dick White’s parting shot to me was ‘Tell no one,’ and he was thinking of Elsa. But she’s sitting naked on my knee. I’m her prisoner. What can I do? Secrecy is the currency of our lives in the Service, and because we can’t share some things it’s easier to share none, even with colleagues. But secrets are a burden and always will be; that’s why the Service is such a great user of people. I tell Elsa more than I should but there are some secrets I hope I’ll take to the grave.
‘Arthur Martin’s driving it, yes. That’s the trouble. That’s why Dick’s brought me back,’ I say.
‘Arthur bullies Dick, and Dick bullies Roger into investigating Graham,’ she says. ‘Sounds very messy.’
There’s a trickle of perspiration at the top of her cleavage I want to kiss, but she still has me by the hair. ‘It’s late,’ she says, rolling away from me. ‘We’ve got to stop doing this.’
‘Day two and you’re exhausted already? Sorry, but you can see that time’s been kind to me.’
‘Ha.’ She stares pointedly at the fold of my midriff. ‘That’s the trouble with old spies. They can’t even be honest with themselves.’
‘What?’ I follow her gaze. ‘That’s nothing, girl.’
But there’s a well-lit mirror in her bathroom that catches me in inglorious profile as I pee. True, I’m not the matinee idol I used to be. Elsa used to call me her Welsh Dirk Bogarde. Older by a few years, certainly, and taller by a few inches – five feet ten – but with the same wiry physique, the same mahogany brown eyes and hair – a little grey at the temples now – the same ironic smile, and with Bogarde’s way of viewing the world from the corner of his eye. I’m an actor too. It became a necessity at eight when guileless Harry Vaughan was taken from his father’s home in a pit village to be turned into a sly young gentleman. Aunt Elen and her bank-manager husband paid the boarding fees at Llandovery, and in a matter of months I wasn’t one boy, I was two.
But we may be many people in a lifetime. Most of us try to hide from ourselves most of the time. Sometimes we hide from others. Some of us can’t remember much about who we were when we began our journey, or quite believe who we have become. Who we are – who we truly are – is concealed in a confusion of colour, like a drip painting by Mr Jackson Pollock. We’re all liars and spies in our own way, it’s just that for some of us it’s a duty. The war didn’t turn me into a spy, it was you, Aunt Elen.
I step out of the bathroom and Elsa shouts from the kitchen, ‘Cover yourself up.’
‘Now you’re hurting my feelings.’
It’s almost midnight but she’s trying to make an omelette.
‘Let me,’ I say, because we both know I’ll cook a better one. ‘Cheese and ham?’ But her fridge is bare. ‘You need a good husband.’
‘You?’ She pats my bottom. ‘There’s nothing good about you, darling.’
Well, I love you is on the tip of my tongue. As I break and whisk the eggs our conversation turns once more to Philby. Elsa says she can’t understand why a cautious man like Dick White doesn’t just let sleeping dogs lie. The prime minister won’t thank him for stirring up a hornet’s nest in the intelligence services.
I say I expect she’s right but it’s too late to sweep things under the carpet. ‘The Americans think the Service has more holes than a Swiss cheese. Here,’ I say, turning her omelette on to a plate.
Elsa carries it back to the sitting-room couch and asks between mouthfuls for my impressions of Arthur Martin. ‘He doesn’t suffer fools,’ I say, ‘and he thinks there are too many of them in Six – too many chinless wonders. He’s the sort of bloke who tells you he’s a patriot.’
‘Is that a criticism?’
‘The funny thing is’ – I catch her arm to prevent her rising from the couch with her empty plate – ‘it was Philby who talent-spotted him for the Security Service.’
She laughs. ‘Then why aren’t you investigating him?’
‘You’re not serious?’
‘Well, you say, Harry’ – she shakes free
and gets to her feet – ‘but if Philby chose him …’
‘You mean Martin is our master spy – the mysterious agent ELLI.’
‘Scoff, if you like, she says, turning at the kitchen door, ‘but you’re still underestimating Kim Philby. He’s one of nature’s cavemen. He was brilliant at deceiving everyone – goodness knows how many important secrets he must have passed to the Russians – and he was committed enough to his cause to run to Moscow. So why would he recruit someone to MI5 who might threaten that cause? He wouldn’t. He fooled everyone because he reads people, and I imagine he saw something in Martin to his advantage.’
I smile, and she rolls her eyes. ‘No, you should remember that, Harry.’
5
May 1963
CLIVE AND TONY are waiting on a meter in Curzon Street. At five thirty sharp the deputy DG will clear his desk and return his papers to a combination safe. He’ll double-lock his door, then wait for the lift that’s reserved for senior officers. The Times will be in his briefcase. He will have polished off the crossword with his morning coffee – seniors at Five seem to. He won’t make eye contact with the policeman in Reception because he’s shy in a boarding-school way that is easy to mistake for arrogance.
It’s a warm spring afternoon and the hawthorn and cherry in Green Park are white and pink. Graham Mitchell will walk. Clive and Tony will follow. They won’t have any difficulty. Deputy DG is an office spy. He doesn’t have that sixth sense of danger that comes with experience of working a street. He suffered from polio as a boy and has limped through most of his life, but he walks to Waterloo station because he has time. Time aplenty. He’s fifty-eight now and winding down to the gold watch. Four months to go before he hangs up his old pinstripe suit, kicks off his office brogues and retires to the golf course – and I haven’t found anything in his past to suggest that isn’t the way it should be.
Witchfinder Page 3